Step 1: So you have an Ipod mini...

So you have an Ipod mini. or you found one online for cheap, I got mine used for $60, great now its time to tear into it. Order yourself a 32 gig compact flash card, and a new replacement or upgrade battery, both can be found on amazon. Typically the batteries will come with cheap tools (usually a small flathead and phillips screwdriver, both still useful to us here)

Step 2: Get it open without a scratch

To get inside of your mini, you'll need to remove the white plastic pieces from the top and bottom, they are glued on, and a bit difficult to remove. Typically people pry them up with a thin screwdriver, but at best you make a small mark anyway.

To do this, we're going to use hot glue as a 'handle' to get ahold of the plastic without damaging it. Sometimes a little dot of glue applied and let cure is enough, sometimes you have to glue something down to the piece to use as a handle.

For me the bottom was easiest, add a dab of glue, let it cool, pry it up gently, and put a screwdriver under the plastic to keep it up.

Also, I would be careful with a high temp glue gun, they may or may not melt or distort the plastic, I didnt try, and high on one gun may be a lot higher then another, so dont say you weren't warned if a high temp glue gun melts your ipod and eats your first born.

For the top, I had to glue a screwdriver down to the plastic piece and use that to lift off the cover.

After my previous success doing this mod I tried to do the same for my girlfriend. Cue chaos. I bought a working ipod from ebay and another of the same Kingston 64GB CF cards from a different vendor. However, when I tried to install the ipod software from itunes after changing the cards it came up with the sad ipod face. Thinking this was maybe a faulty card I tried swapping the CF cards from my working moded ipod and the new, not working ipod over. As expected my original CF card in the 'new' ipod worked and the new CF card in my original ipod was showing the ipod sad face. I assumed the new CF card was faulty and sent it back for a refund before ordering another one from the original vendor.

When the new card arrived I put it in the 'new' ipod and tried to install the software again; no luck again. This time the folder with exclamation mark sign came up and when I plugged it in to the computer it came up as 'do not disconnect' but was not found by Itunes. I tried setting the ipod to 'disk mode', it went to disk mode but still couldn't be found. I tried plugging it in to my work computer instead of my mac, using device manager I found the ipod could be seen, but it was still not being picked up by itunes.

What I did next I will regret for a long time. I again tried swapping the hard drives in the 2 ipods to see what was causing the problem, this time both ipods now came up with the sad Ipod sign. I swapped them back and they both came up with the sad Ipod sign again. I tried the 4gb microdrive that came with my original 'working' ipod in the original ipod, this came up on itunes as usual.

Somehow the new ipod seems to have corrupted both the flash drives. This raises many questions, how did this happen? Why did this not happen the first time I tried swapping the hard drives over? Any ideas?

Also, if I bought a CF card reader, is there someway I can try to reset the cards to their factory settings? Thereby giving me a chance to redo the whole process for my original 'working' ipod and not wasting a hell of a lot of tim and money?

Found a good deal on a 32 Gig DoLogix compact flash card on eBay [it purports to be ATA compatible...] and following your steps have managed to get into the 'pod, free up the World of Tape that some AppleTech gave free to secure the old [SeaGate!] 6 Gig in + upgrade the batteryandstill can't get iTunes to see the iPod... nor Device Manager... even though I tested the new battery and the old drive and the old battery installed in different configs to make certain I haven't damaged the 'pod...perhaps it just doesn't "want" to be FrankenPod ?

lemme know if you've any other thoughts... I'm in process of UN & RE intalling iTunes just to see if something short of midnight live chicken killin' will solve this... perhaps fully charging the new battery WITH old drive ?

but shouldn't iTunes be able to power the device / charge the [any] battery ?

First check and make sure ifs showing up in device manager, to see if the computer is seeing it, if it is, its a software issue, play around in iTunes, etc, if it doesnt show up in device manager, then that is a hardware problem, possibly a damaged connector etc...

Thanks for these tips. However, everything seems to be fine with the connector. E.g. Ipod seems to be charging by wall charger, so that, I assume it is ok. Then, my itunes still do not recognize the ipod, plus, it is not visible in device manager. I add, that I have already exchanged the battery for the new one, cause I had written before, that such problems could occur because of faulty working battery. Another interesting thing is, that while I switch the position of my flash card inserted in the ipod, it displays two different icons: sad ipod face, exclamation folder sign, or battery 1/3 charged without motion. Do you know what can do to fix it? Is there any other way out of this situation? Could it be the matter of lack of original apple software on the flash card? Please help..

So if the microdrive was wiped completely could it be used in place of a CF card, say in a camera, 32GB would be a big card to bother with on a camera and 4GB would be pretty handy, assuming you're doing this mod anyway it'd be a quick way to recycle it.

hmm good point, it was just a passing notion... They've gotten alot better, my phone has an 8GB microdrive and it does well, the accelerometer will shut it off if you drop it but other than that it's great, pretty fast and extremely good when transferring files...

Was in pricing up CF cards for my camera and it's just ridiculous how cheap storage has gotten, also annoying, CF cards are still twice the price of SD... Though when you can go in to the supermarket and get a 16gb flash drive with your shopping without it even being a big purchase...

help, doesnt seem to be working for me.Got everything back together, I get the sad face on the ipod, start iTunes to restore my ipod but now itunes doesnt recognise my iPOD so I cant restore it. One DEAD ipod :-(

I have tried all the Apple help, including putting it into 'disk mode', my PC recognises a USB device is attached (makes the correct sound and the LED on the USB port lights up), but it doesnt show in itunes nor in windows explorer

I used a 8GB SanDisk card, top quality, could that be it?? Are there any CF cards that are not compatible?

Thought maybe I had put the CF drive in the wrong way round, so openned it up again and flipped it. No joy.

Openned it up AGAIN and flipped it back, this time I left the battery attached (would that have made any difference), reassembles, plugged in, and itunes now recognises it, looks like it is restoring OK as I type this.

I accomplished this instructable with total success. Just one tip, be careful about the quality of batter you buy. I had two batteries where the red crimped wire came out of the white connector. I bought those two for $9, on the third one which was the successful one, I spent $20. It was like night and day. So, you often get what you pay for.

During this step one of the wires on my replacement battery actually slipped out of the connector. Can this be re-soldered or am I flat out of luck? I sent an e-mail to the company I purchased the battery from hoping for a replacement...

if you have a fine enough tip for a soldering iron, you can try to put it back in, solder it, put the connector pin back in. If the pin is damaged, you can get some heat shrink and splice the old connector onto the new bat. (use heatshrink not electrical tape to insulate the joints!)

Wicked: My mini is rocking almost 30gb and using less power - AND - I've done my part to revive the US economy. Alright, job well done! Thanks for the Instructable! :) As an aside-- another cheap and easy way of getting the white end caps off is to spend a dollar on those cheap, disposable plastic tools that most of the battery replacement sellers also offer. The tools are made of such soft plastic that they don't mar the end-covers or the ipod housing (though, as a consequence, they get beat up and are only good for one or two uses). You just shove the thin lip of the tool along the long side of the end-piece and it pops right out-- piece of cake.

Really nice one there! Two Questions: Does the Compact Flash card come with the same connector that the microdrive has and you just plug it in or did you have to use some kind of adapter? And how do you get the wheel out? I want to custom paint the case while it's disassembled so i would have to take that thing out too not to ruin it.

No adaptors, just plug right in, other Ipods like the fullsize/video will require one but the Ipod mini requires nothing other then a card swap. As far as the wheel, I think it wass just stuck in, and you can push it down and out, but cant recall 100% at the moment, plenty of other tutorials around here and online.

I was wondering... do you think that it could be possible to get a flash drive and stick it in the slot that connects you to your PC with a USB adapter that could like store movies and like podcasts? Because my Nano is only 4gbs and it would be cool if you could add like 16gbs.

I just put a 32 GB CF into a 5th Gen iPod to replace the hard drive (see the Instructable on that topic). Cost from Amazon was $70 or so. Adapter was $20 from England. Newegg had similar CF price and cheaper delivery but they delivered it 500 miles away and then canceled/returned the order. Not much help there, so I got it from Amazon. My iPod seems to have other issues. It won't boot at all no matter what. I think it needs a new battery. Having a battery charged above 20% seems to be a key issue with them. And now after I've fiddled with it incessantly, it needs a new screen. NEVER OPEN A 5TH GEN iPOD BEGINNING FROM THE TOP. Still with the new card, card adapter, battery and screen, it will be a deal - assuming it works.

The nano's have all had the flash chips soldered to the board. If you could find a larger flash chip with a compatible pinout it could work, but it would be much more difficult then the plug, restore and play of all the other Ipod's. (Not sure about the touch/iphone, I think those use soldered on flash also however, but I could be wrong)

I got it from amazon, searching for 32 gig CF should turn something up. You can get a 30 gig ipod video used for $120, but, I was looking for something small. The new nanos go for 150-200 for the 8 or 16 gig. It would definitely be something more suited to if you had an old mini laying around though.